Introduction 

Virtus International Journal of Research (VIJR) requires responsible and transparent use of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in scholarly work. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Authors must disclose any use of generative AI in preparing a manuscript and remain fully responsible for its content, accuracy, originality, and references. Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts or review reports to AI tools.

This policy applies to manuscript preparation, research methods, visual materials, peer review, and editorial work across the journal’s multidisciplinary scope, including Engineering, Technology, and Applied Sciences.

1. Human Responsibility and Authorship

AI tools cannot assume responsibility for research integrity, approve a manuscript, consent to publication, or respond accountably to questions about the work. Generative AI systems, chatbots, language models, and image generators must therefore not be named as authors or co-authors.

Human authors remain responsible for every part of the submitted work, including material produced or modified with AI assistance. Disclosure of AI use does not transfer responsibility to the tool or its provider.

Authors must ensure that AI assistance does not replace their critical assessment of evidence, interpretation of results, or responsibility for the conclusions.

2. AI Assistance in Manuscript Preparation

AI assistance may support tasks such as language refinement, organization, summarization, or drafting, provided its use is disclosed and the resulting content meets scholarly standards.

Before submission, authors must:

• Verify factual statements and technical explanations.
• Check that cited sources exist and support the associated claims.
• Examine generated content for inaccuracies, omissions, bias, and inappropriate overlap with other works.
• Revise the material to reflect the research accurately.
• Ensure that the manuscript distinguishes established evidence from interpretation or speculation.
• Confirm that the final text represents the authors’ considered scholarly judgment.

AI-generated summaries are not substitutes for consulting relevant original sources. References must not be included solely because an AI system suggested them.

3. Disclosure of Generative AI Use

Authors must disclose any use of generative AI in preparing the manuscript at submission. This includes generation or substantive rewriting of text, translation, summarization, coding assistance, and creation or modification of visual materials.

The disclosure should identify:

• The tool or service used.
• The model or version, where available.
• The purpose and extent of its use.
• The manuscript components affected.
• The verification and human oversight applied.

Generative AI use remains disclosable when incorporated into a writing, translation, coding, or accessibility application. Authors need not disclose disability-related personal information to explain the tool’s contribution.

Ordinary spelling, punctuation, reference-formatting, or other routine software functions that do not involve generative AI do not require an AI-use declaration.

A manuscript-preparation declaration should explain the actual use accurately. For example:

During manuscript preparation, the authors used a generative AI tool to improve the organization and language of selected passages. The authors checked the revised text against the research findings and original sources and accept full responsibility for the final manuscript.

The declaration must also identify the specific tool and available version information. A general statement does not replace reporting of AI methods used in the research itself.

4. AI Used as a Research Method

Where AI forms part of the research design, analysis, software development, modelling, or experimental workflow, authors must describe its role in the Methods section or an equivalent technical section.

Reporting should include, where relevant:

• Model, software, or platform name and available version.
• Developer or provider.
• Whether the model was pretrained, fine-tuned, or developed for the study.
• Data sources, selection, preprocessing, and relevant usage permissions.
• Important settings, parameters, prompts, and processing steps.
• Validation procedures, performance measures, and sources of uncertainty.
• The role of human supervision and verification.
• Access restrictions or technical limitations affecting reproducibility.

Confidential information should not be disclosed merely to reproduce a workflow. Authors should explain legitimate restrictions and provide sufficient non-sensitive information for informed evaluation.

AI-generated or synthetic research data must be identified clearly. Such data must not be presented as independently observed or experimentally collected evidence.

5. Figures, Images, and Other Visual Materials

Explanatory Illustrations

AI-assisted conceptual diagrams, schematics, and workflow illustrations must accurately represent the underlying research. Authors must verify labels, relationships, technical details, and any visual claims.

Generative AI contributions should be identified in the relevant caption and the manuscript’s AI disclosure statement. Illustrative content must not be presented as an actual experimental observation.

Data Visualizations

Graphs, charts, plots, and similar outputs must accurately represent their underlying data. AI assistance must not introduce unsupported values, conceal inconvenient findings, or create misleading visual patterns.

Relevant computational procedures should be described sufficiently to support verification. Authors should retain the underlying data and generation records needed to explain the visualization, subject to applicable access and confidentiality restrictions.

Primary Research Images

AI must not be used to fabricate observations, insert or remove meaningful features, or alter images in ways that misrepresent research evidence.

Where AI-based reconstruction, segmentation, enhancement, or another image-processing method is itself part of the research, authors must describe and validate the method, distinguish processed outputs from original acquisitions, and disclose limitations. Original source images should be retained for appropriate verification.

Graphical Abstracts and Artwork

AI-assisted graphical abstracts or artwork must be identified transparently and must not imply evidence that the research does not provide. Authors must check scientific accuracy and relevant third-party rights.

6. Privacy, Confidentiality, and Third-Party Rights

Authors must assess whether using an AI service is compatible with their authority to share the material and with applicable consent, confidentiality, contractual, and rights requirements.

Before entering research content into a tool, authors should examine its data-retention, training, access, and sharing terms. Sensitive personal information, confidential third-party material, and restricted research data must not be supplied without an appropriate authorized basis and adequate safeguards.

Authors are responsible for checking that submitted outputs do not improperly reproduce protected material or expose identifiable individuals. AI generation does not establish that an output is original, accurate, or cleared for publication.

7. Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts, excerpts, supplementary files, review reports, or editorial correspondence to AI tools. This restriction also covers prompts that reveal unpublished findings, identifying details, or other confidential information.

A tool’s institutional, enterprise, or locally hosted status does not create an exception to this restriction.

Reviewers may use AI for general assistance that involves no confidential submission information, such as exploring publicly available background literature. They must independently verify any resulting information.

Evaluation of originality, methods, evidence, significance, and publication suitability must remain the reviewer’s own work. Reviewers must not substitute an AI-generated assessment for their independent reading and judgment.

Any substantive AI assistance contributing to a review should be disclosed to the editor without entering confidential review content into the tool.

8. Responsibilities of Editors

Editors must not upload confidential submissions, reviewer reports, author correspondence, or related materials to AI tools.

AI may support general tasks involving public or non-confidential information, but editorial assessment and publication decisions remain human responsibilities. Editors must verify information used in their decisions and must not delegate acceptance, revision, rejection, or research integrity determinations to AI.

No specific AI system or automated editorial workflow is established or endorsed by this policy.

9. Assessment of Concerns

Questions about AI use should be assessed according to the evidence and its consequences for accuracy, originality, confidentiality, and research integrity.

Where clarification is necessary, authors may be asked to explain the tool’s contribution, correct a disclosure, verify references, or provide relevant methods and supporting records.

An automated AI-detection result alone is insufficient to establish undisclosed AI use or misconduct. Authors should have an opportunity to respond to substantive concerns.

The editorial response should be proportionate to the established issue. A limited disclosure omission may be remediable, while fabricated evidence, serious confidentiality breaches, or unreliable content may warrant rejection or appropriate post-publication action.